Ex-convicts and a few legislators rallied at the statehouse today, lobbying for sentencing reform and greater spending on programs that help ex-cons make the transition to the outside world. Mario Hayslett is director of Iowa CURE — Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants. Hayslett says felons don’t want to be “thrown away as refuge.” He says ex-offenders aren’t arguing they deserve a second chance, only that they’d like to have a second chance. Dozens of ex-cons who say they’ve been rehabilitated spoke to legislators. Brad Cassatt spent 10 years in the Clarinda prison and went through its substance abuse treatment program. Cassatt was released last April and is going to college, where he says he’s earning a four-point. Cassatt says he knows “there are good people in prison that can make it in society if given the opportunity.” Lee Sandehl served nine months in prison. Sandehl says she represents the “forgotten” women of Mitchellville who’re wasting time behind bars. She says a lot of the women in prison could be released early from prison and become productive citizens. Steve Shondel did time on a meth-related conviction and he says he’s doing fine on the outside. Shondel says he learned more in the six-months of substance abuse treatment he received before he went to prison than the two-and-a-half years he spent behind bars. He says there are a lot of people in prison who should be given a chance to kick the addiction and be paroled. Richard Thornberg, another ex-con, told legislators he did nothing during prison but get a “criminal education.”
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